Thorn in the Side of Man
by Grav
Summary: It was the hypocrisy of the humans that amused him the most. Ba'al fic, post-Continuum.


AN: Ba'al fic? Isn't that one of the signs that you're completely lost to the Stargate fandom? Or at least insane? I have been reading Tolkien and feeling poetical. It always brings out the worst in me.

Spoilers: Continuum

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Not mine. Not mine at all.

Summary: It was the hypocrisy of the humans that amused him the most.

xxx

**Thorn in the Side of Man**

It was the hypocrisy of the humans that amused him the most. He'd lived among them twice, once as a god and once as like unto a god, and both times he had had occasion to laugh.

In the Old Days (he'd stopped thinking of them as the Glory Days when Adam from Accounting had introduced him to the opus of Bruce Springsteen), he had many names and was brother, father and lover to many. 'Anat, his glorious, rage-filled consort had been the true power then. He hadn't minded. The humans were tractable, easy to manipulate, almost wanton if approached correctly. He had never lacked sport.

The world changed. El's fiery wheel and silver-tongued First Prime had laid his sister low and fed her servants to the dogs from the high window of their own chambers. Thus bereft of both lover and leader, he had fled to the stars, resolving to never again be in such a position of subservience. His body, gotten from Earth, was strong, but he found his mind was stronger still, more than he expected, once it was taken away from the blandishments of his goddess. She faded to memory, an absurd legend of a battle-ragèd virgin, the one time Killer of Men.

He endured.

Establishing a multi-national corporation in the United States was too much work for a man alone, even when that man was preternaturally gifted. There were many nights when he rejoiced in having perfecting the cloning process. Sometimes he wonders what is taught at American business schools that could in any way prepare them for the cut throat world of industry. Several centuries of being a junior partner, a lesser god at the table of the System Lords, and sometimes the thought of the bi-monthly budget meeting still sends him shooting up from his pillows in a cold sweat at three o'clock in the morning.

A lot of the day to day details are alarmingly similar. He is strangely reliant on barely competent peons he can hardly stand to look at, and every one of his actions is treated as something sacred by his underlings. It is shortly after the Christmas party where Adam from Accounting gets drunk enough to prosthelyze the work of Bruce Springsteen to his CEO that the plan begins to come together in his mind.

Humans, it seems, are amusing, but they are much more tolerable when all the overly spirited ones are dead.

He discovered time travel on a Wednesday. It annoys him that even after he's left Earth he can;t get over the days of the week. He picks the point in history carefully, measuring the Stargate's vulnerability alongside the development of certain amenities he doesn't intend to live without. It all pulls together remarkably well. The Tau'ri toddle on, thinking that wireless internet connections are pretty neat, and the System Lords fall into line beside him.

There are days when he can barely stand to look at Teal'c. It had been dead easy to steal him away from Apophis. The lie of a free Jaffa Nation had flowed smoothly from his lips, and Teal'c had lapped up the rhetoric with an enthusiasm that was almost laughable, considering that Teal'c had been the one to say most of the words in the first place. He misses the fire, though; that spark of determination that had always burned in Teal'c's eyes.

He doesn't understand it fully until he's looking out the window at a planet that doesn't know how completely it has been conquered. This victory is empty. He thought subverting his nemeses would be as fulfilling as blowing them out of the sky in battle. It was the way he'd worked for millennia, and it had always been satisfying before.

But it's ashes in his mouth now, that he can't see Sam Carter's expression when she cannot find the answer; can't see Mitchell's face when his farmstead is wiped from the surface of the planet; can't see Daniel Jackson's eloquence in despair. Teal'c provides no bulwark of ego either, his blindness to the way things were crippling his very essence.

As Qetesh slides the knife in, he marvels at the elegant simplicity of her solution, and wonders why, for all his intelligence, he didn't think of doing the same thing to 'Anat when things began to go ill all those many years ago.

xxx

**finis**

Gravity_Not_Included, October 16, 2008

AN: The title comes from an Elvis song "Hard Headed Woman", which I am pretty sure I only thought of because in remembering all I learned about Ba'al in my Canaanite religion class, the only other two names I could think of were 'Anat and Jezebel, the latter of whom is mentioned in that song. I didn't say it made any sense.

Also, my apologies to Bruce Springsteen, but I really don't think he's Ba'al's type. The line appeared in my head very early on in the thought process of this fic though, and I loved it, so it stayed.


End file.
